Your Job.

Job Interviews Becoming Up-close And Personal

Many Executives Are Letting It Be Known That They Want To Balance Careers With Family Life

July 18, 1996|By Carol Kleiman, Tribune Jobs Columnist.

Though federal and state anti-discrimination laws protect job candidates from answering questions about family responsibilities before the actual employment offer, an executive recruiter finds that executives who are in their 30s are not reluctant to bring up the subject themselves.

"Until recently, many professionals avoided talking about their families during a job interview, fearing it would weaken their position when compared with other candidates," said Lynn K. Cherney, partner of Cherney & Associates, an executive search firm headquartered in Northbrook.

But today, Cherney has observed, "candidates are stating upfront that they expect to balance their careers with a meaningful personal life."

The trend includes women and men. And that's why companies are more willing to consider flexible work schedules in order to retain qualified employees.

Even in the face of downsizing and mergers, Cherney says "companies would be shortsighted" to ignore this real need of future executives.

And of all present employees.

- What the doctor ordered. In reply to a recent column I wrote about the growing need nationwide for family physicians, a doctor wrote about her efforts to promote the idea of family medicine.

"I only hope your column reaches the high school and college students who are thinking about going to medical school," the physician wrote. "Family practice is a great specialty."

She adds: "We're seeing more interest in family medicine among some medical students, but it's not even close to where it should be. Your column gave me hope for the future."

My reply: You give me hope.

- Don't be negative. A sense of injustice, of being treated unfairly, is the most common cause of workplace negativity, "a contagious disease that cripples employee morale and bleeds profit," says Dr. Sheila Ruth, a professor at Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville.

Ruth, who specializes in managing negative behavior in the workplace, reports that at some work sites, "you can feel the negativity crackling in the walls."

The results often are an increase in employee mistakes, accidents, absenteeism, theft, high turnover, low morale and angry customers--not a pretty picture.

Though a negative workplace is management's problem, there are some things employees can do to combat its toxic affects, according to Ruth:

1. Decide if you want to continue working there.

2. Keep away from employees who constantly complain.

3. Don't let the negativity become a part of your personality.

4. Don't feed the rumor mill.

5. Don't let the negativity spill over to your private life.

And be pro-active in encouraging your company to clean up some of the toxic aspects of work that pollute the air at the office or plant.

- Fighting back. A recently "laid-off, outsourced and downsized" worker who has been unsuccessfully job hunting for a year, believes he lost his job and can't find a new one because of age discrimination--even though he is "only 48 years young."

The job seeker carefully reviews corporate annual reports and notices that when it comes to boards of directors, age discrimination seems to be skewed in the opposite direction: From their pictures, he says, directors appear to be over 50 years of age.

He also thinks it's time for the job-slashing directors to get a taste of their own medicine.

That's why he suggests these changes, to be instituted by shareholders with voting stock:

1. Hire new directors who are younger and less experienced.

2. Classify the board openings as "entry level" positions.

3. Hire new directors at lower pay than the high fees some now get. If they don't like it, tell them to "take it or leave it and go elsewhere," which is what employees and job seekers are told.

The result will be "cost savings for the company and higher dividends for shareholders," he concludes.

Another result: a sense of satisfaction for employees who are downsized amid new levels of high earnings by their corporations and unparalled high compensation for their boards of directors and top executives.

- Coach's Tip. Revenge may taste sweet, but when you leave a job, no matter how tempting it may be to do so, leave behind no burning bridges.

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Carol Kleiman's columns appear in the Tribune on Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday. She can be reached at e-mail at ckleiman@tribune.com